anything under the sun...

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Why does everyone seems to be so hook-up with this all new craze? The blog and the blog life. Do you get anything from reading other people's blog? Or do you even read the blog of others? I guess, not. Most people that I've known, who had a blog of themselves, don't seem to be interested at all at reading others blog. Why is it so?

I'm not aware if someone had already read about what I've been posting here for a past few days, and I'm starting to doubt if someone will ever read my entries here. I know that I shouldn't lose hope. I know that I should just keep on posting until someone stumbles on my blog; and until someone finds this interesting. I don't know. I don't really know if it will ever happen.

But still the same, I'll keep on posting. Besides, it doesn't truly matter if someone will be able to read my blog since I believe that blog is somewhat like an online diary. And it sometimes kept me wondering why people who uses blog were so bothered in promoting their own blog, making it such a big deal. So what? So what if people doesn't ever read your blog? So what if people aren't interested in what you write? Does it matter? Yes, of course it did. To all of us bloggers, it did matter. But does it mean you'll have to stop writing? Blogging? Does it mean that you're such a loser just because no one ever took notice of your blog and your life in it? Does blog, for us bloggers, is all about self-disclosure to people we doesn't even know? Is this the meaning of blog for you? Self-disclosure? Hell, never stoop down on that level.

I believe that blog is not just about telling other people about your life. It's more than that. It's about sharing your life and your knowledge about your life, or anything under the sun, to help other people grasp the true reality of life.

So, if one day you think of giving up just because no one is ever reading your blog, just think that life is not all about you. Life is about others, too. The world doesn't revolves around you. In the same manner that the world doesn't revolve around me, too. People, sometimes, are so busy with their own lives, with their own blog life that they took for granted other blogger's life too.

When was the last time you find yourself reading other's blog? Do you even write a short comment? I hope you did. Coz we both know how it all means.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I don’t know about you, but one of the things I’m afraid most in life is mediocrity. For me, life is too precious to be lived in mediocrity. Life is a golden opportunity, and we should use it as good as we can. Living in mediocrity means we do not use the opportunity as good as we should.

Unfortunately, many people are trapped in mediocrity. I believe one of the main reasons is they do not dare to be different. You need to be different if you want to be above the average. The question is:

Do you dare to be different?

This question might not be easy to answer, but how you answer it will make the difference between excellence and mediocrity.

Here are some more specific questions to help you check yourself and take actions:

1. Do you have a dream?

This is the first question you should ask yourself. I believe one of the main reasons people just follow the herd is they don’t have a dream. If there is nothing to pursue then why bother being different?

But a dream is what sets you above the average. Not having a dream means going to mediocrity on autopilot.

If your answer for this first question is “no” then start searching. I’m sure you have a dream deep inside of you. It might be something from your childhood. Maybe for long time you have been too busy to let the little voice of your dream be heard. This is the right time to heed that little voice.

If you have found your dream, the next question is whether or not you have the courage to follow it. Questions two through five will deal with that.

2. Are you doing what you want or what you should?

There are often implicit “rules” about what someone should do in a particular situation. For example, when there are two job opportunities, the “rule” says that you should take the one with higher pay.

But is that what you want? I mean, does it help you achieve your dream? Maybe the job with less pay will help you achieve your dream while the one with higher pay doesn’t. Do you have the courage to be different and follow your dream?

3. Do you worry more about being loved than being what you love?

Another reason why we don’t dare to be different is because we are trying to meet other people’s expectations. We often worry more about what other people say than about what matters to us. But living someone else’s life is a bad way to live your life. Why should you lose opportunity just because of what other people say?

4. Do you choose what is safe rather than what is right?

Maybe you are not trying to meet other people’s expectation. Maybe you just don’t want to take risks and therefore you choose to play safe. But this is exactly what many old people regret. When they were asked in a study about what they regretted most and what they would do differently, most of them answered: “I wish I had risked more.” Don’t let the same regret happen to you.

5. If you had only six months left to live, would you do what you are doing now?

You can only answer “yes” to this question if what you are doing matters to you. Doing what matters to you is a sure way to excellence since you will do it with all your heart. But you need the courage to be different and follow your heart. Do you have it? I hope your answer is yes. Life is too precious to be lived in mediocrity.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

It's a big risk. I know most people would agree with me if I say that taking risks are essential in order for us to achieve are dreams and goals. But will you still take a risk even if you're already sure that you'll be losing something in the course of it? Something you've work hard for the past years of your life? Will you? It's like choosing one thing over the other, but it so happen that both are truly important for you, and you just can't afford to lose any of it.

This is my dilemma. I have a dream, a path, that I want to take. It's not just an ordinary path, it is a path which is very different for me, or for what the others would say right for me. But this is me. This is what I would really like to take. I couldn't imagine myself reaching for other dream than this. I want to become an actress. A real one. It has been my dream since I was a child. But no one knows this. Even my parents have no idea about it. But I want to and I don't know how to reach for it. I grew up as a shy child. So, I never been really into a real stage and act. But I want to. I really want to. It's like the passion is in my blood. It's in my soul. The only problem is I am afraid to act on it.

I planned to audition for Teatro Tomasino this year. But I think, it will forever be just a plan. Yes, I'm afraid to audition. But it's not only that. Someone told me that the meetings are always held every 6:00-9:00pm, and it only means that I'm doomed. Coz even if I've manage to gather my courage and pass the audition, I still can't join. Why? Coz my parents wouldn't approve it. My curfew is before six! Yeah, they're that strict. Plus, I'm a student of the College of Science. And it's hard to maintain grades. Really hard, especially if you want to become a dean's lister. I am one. And everyone is counting on me. I've been a good student since high school. And I really work hard for my grades even then. I'm no genius. I believe in working hard and having the determination to have good grades. And I want to keep it that way.

But how? How could I reach my dreams without giving up my studies? Studies are very important for me. I'd always say that school is my life, and it's true. Everyone expect me to be an achiever in academics. But how could I be the person I wanted to be? How could I reach my dreams? How?

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Have you read it? One Love, One Lifetime. I hope you had, but if you hadn't then I strongly advice you to read first the One Love, One Lifetime that I had posted preceding this entry.

It's a nice true to life story written by quickmelt. I read it first on "The Best of Youngblood," a book-compilation of stories submitted by young writers in the Philippine Daily Inquirer column. I fell in love with her story the first time I'd read it. It was just like my story. I could relate on every lines and every words she'd said. It is as if that if I could ever write my own story in details, then there's no other way I could write it and describe it better than by using quickmelt's own words.

It was just like my story, though of course, there were a slight of differences.

It was November last year, when I first felt that there was 'something'.I was 17 then. I first thought that this feeling of something would pass by if I do not think of it that much. I thought that if I just ignore the feeling and act as if everything was in my control, then everything will be back to normal. But fortunately or unfortunately, it didn't. And don't get me wrong, it's not that this was my first time to have a crush or get attracted on someone. It was just that…this time, it IS totally different.

It was entirely and downright different. People of all ages had always describe love as a feeling. A strange blissful feeling that I guess, it could be compared to the euphoric sensations that people under the influence of drugs crave for. That's why for me, 'falling in love' itself is a kind of an addiction. The greatest addiction that a human being could ever felt in his/her entire lifetime. But just like what I've said, mine was a different story. It doesn't involve those cliché symptoms that most people knew and most young people would find on the net when they search in Google or Yahoo, "how to know when you're in love?"

Usually, they say that you know that you're in love when, you start to hear the beating of your heart gets faster, and louder than the stamping of a thousand of horses by the mere sight of that special someone. When you blush whenever that someone is around; when you can't help but to look into his/her direction always; when you couldn't manage to look straight in the eyes of that someone; when you feel a combination of that overwhelming happiness and nervousness at the same time, just right there in your stomach, that makes you feel you want to pupu when s/he is around; when you ignore all his/her flaws and decided to love every little bit of him/her even if it means that you would tolerate his/her little insanity; when you couldn't help but think of him/her all day long, and blah blah blah blah… I'm pretty sure everyone of you knows, or probably, had already experienced what I'm talking about. Right? Right. But I beg to disagree.

This was not my case. But I did already experience all of those symptoms that, as they say, you've fallen in love with someone. And sad to say that those few persons that have given me this kind of feeling was NOT truly the person I loved. Well, yes, maybe I have liked them. But that's it, just a little intense than a simple admiration. But I know that it was not love. It was just a simple liking, or maybe you called that infatuation (But I still beg to disagree that it was infatuation, coz for your information, infatuation involve some kind of sexual desire to your object of affection, and I don't have any of it to my previous crushes).

So, how come mine was different? It's simple, just take the opposite of what everything I've said about how to know you're in love (except the last one that I've said about 'you can't help but think of him/her'). And that's it. That's what I've felt. Nothing different. Nothing romantic, no fast beating of heart, no nervousness, or anything.

So you might be wondering what it's like whenever we're together? Well, it was downright casual, just like how you chat and go along with your bestfriend. Though, of course, he was not my bestfriend and I am not his. And maybe, this was the reason why I never had the feeling of nervousness around him, and I never felt uncomfortable in his presence, because first of all, he is my friend. (And mind you, it has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. But I won't discuss it here. It deserves another article.) Second, it was a gradual thing that I didn't even really notice that I was already falling.

It was too natural to be unnatural, but still it was different. I know that this time, it was for real. I am in love, at last. (Or maybe, I just thought I am.) How did I know? I guess, once you've feel it, you will know right then and there that that was something. Something more than just a simple liking. Sometimes, you don't even have to ask yourself, you just need to trust your intuition. And no matter how many times you ignore it, or even resist it, you would still, sooner or later, fall in the trap.

I guess, knowing that you're in love with someone is just the same thing as in eating; in knowing whether you're really hungry or not, whether a certain food is a want or a need.Most people likes chocolates or anything sweet, since it give them a delightful feeling. That is a want, but I know, and you know, that a person can still live without chocolates even for a lifetime. You could still live even without those favorite foods you want. Besides, no one takes chocolates every meal. But compared to water? Everyone needs water, even if sometimes people don't realize it that they can't live without it. The same with love. Choose the person that you can't live without.

In the sixteenth summer of my life I fell in love for the first time. Naturally, I had no idea what I was getting into. Youth, for all its freshness and vigor, does not have the wisdom of past experience. And so it was that I was very ill equipped when Cupid’s arrows first struck. I still had fairy-tale notions of love: Boy likes girl, girl likes boy, boy and girl pledge undying love for each other, and they live happily ever after. I only had to find my Prince Charming, and everything would be smooth sailing. I was young and invincible. No sadness could touch me, especially in the arena of romance.

To young people finding themselves drawn to someone for the first time, everything is wonderful and new. I once read that love is like God’s finger on your shoulder. Every beautiful thing in the world feels like it was made solely for your enjoyment, like a gift chosen with only you in mind. Perhaps the greatest of all these gifts is the sound of your heart catching in your throat at the sight of a boy smiling at you as though you, too, were a gift he cannot quite thank God enough for.

When I look back at the days when I was all giddy with the first discovery of love, I find that the grass was greener, the air was fresher and even the sun was kinder, not sending its rays down to punish my back on sweltering afternoons, like it does now, but bathing me in its radiance so that I had the morning sunshine in my smile. The splendor of creation, the marvel of life – I had never tasted them more fully than when I had a heart grateful for the first touch of love. It felt like I had the whole world in my hands, the power to do whatever I pleased, in my own sweet time as soon as I had finished attending to greater things at hand, such as the business of love. My prince had come on his white charger, to rescue me from my ordinary, solitary existence. Suddenly, I had someone to hold my hand. It was a bliss. It was ecstasy. I was madly, deeply, truly in love.

I thought my happiness was without end. I thought that since we had naturally gravitated toward each other, it would be a simple thing to get together and be sweethearts until our hearts gave out in our golden years. Of natural causes, not of exhaustion, like I don’t feel like loving you anymore. Of a coronary disease, maybe not some mysterious happenstance, like where is the love we used to know?

Where did it go? I don’t know. Maybe it was too beautiful last. Maybe the deities who bestowed this wondrous gift on me decided they could not extend their generosity any further. Maybe it wasn’t love at all. Maybe it was merely a sweet but insignificant friendship, that in my romantic delusion I had exaggerated into a grand love affair. Years of sleepless nights, countless tears and endless soul searching have given me no answers.

But if it wasn’t love, what could it possibly have been? What was it that made me feel his presence like no other, day after day, month after month, year after year? He would walk into a room and my attention would immediately be riveted to him, like an oarsman in the dead of night fixing his eyes on a lighthouse miles and miles away. I would see him come out of a building, and my eyes would light up like incandescent bulbs. He would smile at me and I’d melt, quicker than you can say quickmelt. He would grant me the privilege of his company, and like a kitten I would purr contentedly in my master’s lap. I would see him over the weekend, and no amount of stress could ruin my happiness for two weeks thereafter. He would talk to me for a while, and I’d panic for lack of something appropriate to say, and my tongue would fall back in my throat and stay there for the rest of the conversation almost asphyxiating me. He would narrate some anecdote, and I could recite it from memory many months after everyone else had forgotten it. He would crack one of his numerous jokes and I’d laugh like a hyena, loving the sound of his voice more than the sound of my own laughter. He would open his mouth tot say something, and I would hear the loveliest music and feel my face glow with intense satisfaction, like when my father used to take me to the supermarket to pick as many Dole pineapple juice cans off the shelves as I cared.

Even to this day, when I have successfully convinced myself and unsuccessfully convinced my friends that I have fallen out of love with him, I cannot help but cast one last glance in his direction until the last hair on his head is out of sight, trying to preserve every detail of his appearance in my memory until the time I will see him again.

I loved his smile most of all. It must have been the same smile Noah had upon seeing the rainbow after the Great Flood. Swirling masses of dark clouds and slowly, one by one, little fingers of light coalesce to reveal a brilliant arc of colored light in the sky. I remember how he used to smile at me when we’d pass each other in the school corridors. Reflexively I’d smile back, grinning like silly, my meager dimples stretched up to my ears, my face dangerously close to splitting. He’d give me that dazzling smile of his and everything would stop just like that. It was as if the world had ceased to exist; it was only me and him: his glistening retainers the vertiginous dance of my heart. When they said money can’t buy happiness, they must have meant the happiness that comes with first love.

He gave me the greatest happiness as well as the greatest sadness of my young life. The times when he made me feel mot loved will always be like commemorative gold coins in mint condition in my mind. When you hear your heart beat in unison with another even for the most fleeting moment, that’s one moment you will never forget.

I fell apart when it finally became clear that we weren’t getting anywhere, at least not together and that our great love affair was only being carried on in my imagination. Love is a woman’s existence, and mine became totally disordered. I could not sleep. I could not eat. I could not study. I could not do anything but think of him. I cannot imagine it now, but there was a time when my every thought was of him. I would be praying and I’d think of him, and then I’d pray, “Please God, I love him. Please let him love me again.” I would be eating, and then I’d recall some meal we had taken together in some restaurant I cannot enter now without him beside me again. I would be studying, and I’d remember how we used to chat merrily in the library while my hand was mechanically doing my homework. I would be sleeping, and if I so much dreamt of his shadow, I’d be sleepless for days afterward. I would be watching a love story, and no matter what the plot was, I would think that maybe this was what was happening to us two. I would be looking at the stars in the sky, and then I’d recite that childhood rhyme: Starlight, star bright/ first, second, third, ad infinitum star I saw tonight/ I wish I may, I wish I might/ have the wish I wish tonight, please grant me his love anew. I would be living my life in the present, then I’d think of him and suddenly I’d want to live the past all over again. Once I nearly tore off the tuning knob from the radio, switching stations because one song kept on playing on the airwaves, telling me this is your story, when I was desperately trying to put a semblance of normality in my life (and trying to cram for my finals).

Two years down the line, I discovered tennis and took out my frustration on the hapless, fuzzy, yellow balls. In no time at all I had an excellent serve, but alas, I could not master the groundstrokes.

I pined for him until I could pine no longer. I kept my life empty for the longest time so that he could freely re-enter anytime he wished. Now I realize that wish was a great disservice to myself. In my great, tragic love for this person I had forgotten to love myself and became a victim of my own neglect. But then in the anguished lives the young lead, they need drama commensurate to their hormonal levels, and my drama was wasting away for a boy I had lost, I guess, to college education.

Through it all I loved him very much. I loved him so much that, as the cliché goes, I could not deny him his happiness. If he was happier with someone else, so be it. If the was happier with me as only a friend, so be it. Through it sometimes felt like I had a wound in my heart, it didn’t matter, I loved him anyway. After a while, it didn’t matter that he didn’t love me in return, I loved him anyway. When he’d wonder if there was a girl out there for him, I could scarcely stop myself from screaming, “Here I am, you doofus, no need to go far.” When he took his problems to someone else, I felt hurt, left out, unworthy. Maybe I could not have his love, but my brain would be in a frenzy canceling appointments so I could be at his back and call. I loved him so much I felt it was such a massive injustice, tyranny even, that I could not have him, when I was probably the one who loved him most, after his mother. I would never let any harm come to him. Touch a hair on his head and I’d metamorphose into the Incredible Hulk and kill you.

Call it stupidity, call it insanity, call it obsession, call it infatuation, call it whatever you want, it was love, sweet bittersweet love. With love, as with faith, if you believe that’s justification enough, no explanation is necessary. If you do not, no explanation is possible. When you are blessed enough to love, it will change you in so many ways you can never be the same again.

Love means different things to different people, different thing at different times. Like everything, it changes. It waxes and wanes like the moon.

In all my years of loving one boy with all the love my heart could hold, I learned that no matter where I want, no matter what I did, no matter who I was with, there was only one person for me, no matter if he long ceased to feel the same way. It was not his fault that I was so unhappy for so long, it was simply my misfortune, my cross to carry. In spite of everything, I am a better person, and I will forever be indebted to him for teaching me how it is to love. Never mind that his teaching was done mostly in absentia. I madly, deeply, truly loved him. I hope never to dishonor that love by engaging in cheap flings with whoever catches my fancy at the moment.

To me love is not a conquest, much less one conquest after another. Conquest denotes subjugation, a submission to a more powerful will. You don not make a person submit to your will and mold him as you see fit tom make him more lovable in your eyes. You love him for what he is. You do not gloss over his imperfections you learn to live with his flaws. You do not brag to your friends that he is yours for the taking, there is no place for braggadocio in love. You wait instead anxiously for the next time he tells you he loves you, no matter if it may never happen and in the meantime the uncertainty is making you miserable. You do not boost his ego with false praises, only to give him the ultimate put-down by taking him for a fool. You find yourself speechless with admiration and fear that the slightest touch will betray the depth of your emotion. You do not cry foul when you see that the course of love has not gone according to your fervent wishes. You do not bawl at him, “How dare you tell me you love me, take my heart, and then disappear from my life.” You do not demand the return of glorious days long past. You do not blame him for your shattered illusions and waylaid dreams and least of all for your broken heart. Even in the lowest troughs of self-pity and despair, you cannot bring yourself to cause him the slightest grief. You would rather die than give him the slightest hint that he has anything to do with your unhappiness. Love bears all – maybe not always with a smile that’s big enough for all the world to see, but just one that’s brave enough to tell him it’s okay, you’ll live so he doesn’t have to feel bad.

It is never easy to lay open the door to your heart, because love and rejection get in the same way. Love is not for the faint-hearted. I loved once, and years later I am still reeling from it. Having survived one heartbreak has not lessened my fear of going through another. Thus I envy people who can plunge headlong into relationships after but just some tentative attempts at getting to know another person. I envy people who can meet strangers and shortly afterward declare that they were meant for each other. I envy those who are not afraid to go after their happiness and damn the consequences. I envy people who can go from conquest to conquest without feeling diminished by it.

I can never be like them. I don’t think like them. Once you’ve tasted manna from heaven, why bother with bread from the baker? Nothing compares with it.

Until God sends me my angel on earth to love and to cherish forever, I will be content to be alone. I have learned to swallow my loneliness like a bitter pill, hoping that my good behavior will make fate smile at me and say, “Here is the one for you. Live happily ever after, your name is written on his heart.”

One love, one lifetime – that is my hope. Not one conquest after another. As Sting sings, that’s not the shape of my heart.

This could be the startOf something newIt feels so rightTo be here with youAnd now looking in your eyesI feel in my heartThe start of something new

This is the start of something new in my life since this is the first time for me to have a blog. And I'm glad that I have finally able to gather my courage to start, since I'm always in doubt whether I could manage to have an interesting blog or not. But I've realized that if I wouldn't begin now, then when will I? I wouldn't know if I could be able to manage this and to keep this alive if in the first place, I wouldn't start. Right?

Besides, I've always felt the challenge of keeping and doing something (such as blogging, journal-writing) as long as I could, and as long as I breathe despite the fact that my schedule in school is always loaded.

Anyway, I would like to apologize in advance for those who will read my entries for the following reasons:

1.) Wrong grammars and wrong spellings

I'm not a writer, coz I believe that I'm more of a reader. But I still do want to try writing. So please bear with my flaws. If you can't take it, then you're free to leave.

2.) You may find it boring.

Sorry, my life isn't that colorful compared to soap operas you probably watch on T.V. Besides, I'm writing for myself and not for you.If you can't take what I'm saying, then leave!

I think I will have some problem with this. I won't be able to post daily since I don't have yet a DSL at home. And yes, I'm still using the prepaid cards…you know, the dial-up connection using ISP Bonanza, Blast, Frequency, I-republic, etc. (though now, I always used the Frequency since ISP seems to be rare nowadays, I guess nalugi na sila, the same with the other internet prepaid cards). And FYI, they're not yet all extinct as long as I still patronize their products. (LOL.)And again, if you can't take whatever I'm saying here since you can't fathom on why you're wasting you're time reading the blog of a poor person like me, then LEAVE!!!

Wish List

Until God sends me my angel on earth to love and to cherish forever, I will be content to be alone. I have learned to swallow my loneliness like a bitter pill, hoping that my good behavior will make fate smile at me and say, “Here is the one for you. Live happily ever after, your name is written on his heart.”